NewsIndustry EventsMPPD Wraps Up 50th Anniversary Conference

MPPD Wraps Up 50th Anniversary Conference

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Manitoba Potato Production Days (MPPD) wrapped up its 50th anniversary conference on Jan. 26, 2023 with half a day of programming. The show ran from Jan. 24 to 26, 2023 in Brandon, Man. at the Keystone Centre.

The last day of the conference featured presentations on:

Highlights included:

  • Results for yield from Thornton’s study — plants had no visual symptoms and the yields showed no difference either
  • Tuber size is also being impacted by wildfire smoke — depending on the variety — Thornton said
  • So far no indications that smoke is changing sugar content in spuds, Thornton said
  • Thornton points out that the years there’s wildfire smoke are also the hottest and driest years — so heat stress is also impacting potatoes
  • Basically soil health is the condition or capacity of the soil to function as a vital ecosystem, Rosen said
  • There’s a whole host of ways to measure and test soil health Rosen said, but they can be broke down to three categories – chemical, physical and biological
  • The soil micro biome is important as it’s what’s building and maintaining soil, enhances nutrients uptake and can promote plant health, Rosen said
  • Rosen found there was no one soil health indicator that was consistently associated with yield
  • Fageria said they found that by fall ridging the soil dried faster allowing for early potato planting leading to higher yields

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